Audiences and College Assignments: What Are Your Experiences and Thoughts on Audience?

RHETORICAL CONTEXT: Does Audience Matter to You and Your Students?

ASSESSMENT INSTITUTE: Share a little about you and the ways your students do and don't engage with audiences as part of their course assignments, projects, and more.

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* 1. How long have you been in higher education or teaching in another environment?

1-3 years

4-7 years

8-11 years

A long time

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* 2. Does audience matter to you in your own work?

No: The audiences has zero influence on the way I write or shape my work. [Think beyond your publishing to the way your write assignments, emails, talk with family, and other rhetorical scenarios.]

Yes: The audience plays a significant role in the way I shape my work. [Think beyond your publishing to the way your write assignments, emails, talk with family, and other rhetorical scenarios.]

It's Complicated. Sometimes: There are times the audience shapes my choices and other times I am not thinking about the audience at all.

Share other thoughts on the ways you take audience into consideration or not:

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* 3. In your courses or instructional environments, who do you ask students to share their work with? Check all that apply.

Private Work: Some of my assignments are for the student only [I don't look at it]

Faculty as Audience: I am the only audience for some of my students' assignments

In-Class Peer Review: Some assignments require students to share work with one another [peer review]

Stakeholders on Campus: Some assignments require students to share work with campus stakeholders. This might be presentations across multiple sections [like a speech contest], presentations to others in your school/college, tabling at campus events, soft-publishing in a campus publication, presentations to wider campus audeinces [like undergraduate research symposiums], and more.

Stakeholders/Clients that Partner with Students/Teams: Some assignments require students to work with "clients" to tailor aspects to meet their specific needs--these clients may be ON CAMPUS -or- BEYOND CAMPUS.

Stakeholders with Shared Interests but NOT Project Clients/Partners: Some assignments are designed to share with professional or at conferences beyond campus, but the students do not work directly with a specific client. This could include community event tabling, presentations at academic conferences, roundtable/workshop opportunities, and more.

Soft-Publish: Students share work in a public-facing repository of work that lives online. This might include a campus showcase, Scholarworks, university website, thesis placement in a library collection, and more.

Publish: My students do work with the goal of publishing/sharing it in a newspaper, journal, anthology, book, website zine, State House/legal document, video/film outlet , or other edited/peer managed scenario.

Other (tell us more)

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* 4. If you incorporate class assignments/projects that are shared with audiences beyond the classroom, what are your thoughts on the ways this does or does not affect their work?

None: I don't ask students to share work with anyone outside of our class. I don't feel strongly one way or the other.

NONE: I think it is not appropriate to ask students to share college work in public. [You are welcome to tell us more in the comment area below--you are not identified by the survey: feel free to vent.]

Some: Students seem to be MORE INVESTED when their work is for a community client or organization [someone outside of the class] who might be on campus, in the community, or on the other side of the world.

Some: Students seem to TURN IN BETTER WORK when it is for a community client or organization

No: Students do NOT seem more invested when I add real-world audiences to projects/assignments

No: Students do NOT seem to do better work when I require them to share it with audiences beyond the classroom

YES: I feel strongly that "a public display of competency," which is one of the eight elements of a High-Impact Practice, is important. [You are welcome to share more in the comment below--you are not identified by the survey: feel free to vent.]

I have strong feelings about . . . (tell us more)

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* 5. In relation to audience and student work, some of the things I hope we talk about today include . . .

The need to protect student privacy.

The lack of quantifiable evidence that real-world audiences actually optimize student investment.

Ways to soft-publish, so students can share their work on the internet.

Ways to require public displays of competency, while providing options [at the end] for students who are not ready to take that step.

Other thoughts?